BEST SELLERS: April 28, 1991

Published: April 28, 1991

Weeks This Last On Week Week List Fiction 1 1 3 THE SEERESS OF KELL, by David Eddings. (Del Rey/Ballantine, $20.) The fifth volume in the "Malloreon" fantasy saga. 2 3 7 THE FIRM, by John Grisham. (Doubleday, $19.95.) A young lawyer learns that his firm is engaged in secret, possibly illegal activities. 3 2 10 HEARTBEAT, by Danielle Steel. (Delacorte, $21.95.) A chance meeting of a man and a woman, both with successful careers in television, enables them to solve their romantic problems. (LP) 4 4 7 THE DRUID OF SHANNARA, by Terry Brooks. (Del Rey/Ballantine, $19.95.) A new volume in a series about the fantasy land of Shannara. 5 6 5 DAMAGE, by Josephine Hart. (Knopf, $18.) A British gentleman is mesmerized when he meets the woman his son plans to marry. 6 7 2 ASPEN GOLD, by Janet Dailey. (Little, Brown, $19.95.) A woman returns to her native Colorado to face a choice: fame in Hollywood or love with an old flame. (LP) 7 1 THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT, by Lawrence Sanders. (Putnam, $21.95.) The temptations experienced by an insurance company investigator when she probes the murder of a millionaire. 8 5 7 THE EAGLE HAS FLOWN, by Jack Higgins. (Simon & Schuster, $21.95.) A German general and an I.R.A. assassin plot a daring rescue attempt during World War II. 9 8 2 THE NOVEL, by James A. Michener. (Random House, $23.) Life as lived by writers, critics and book editors in the Pennsylvania Dutch country and in Manhattan. (LP) 10 14 57 OH, THE PLACES YOU'LL GO! by Dr. Seuss. (Random House, $12.95.) The problems of finding your way through life; in verse and pictures. 11 11 2 CAPE COD, by William Martin. (Warner, $21.95.) The history of the Massachusetts peninsula, told in fictional form. 12 9 14 COLD FIRE, by Dean R. Koontz. (Putnam, $22.95.) A despondent reporter finds hope and romance while she tracks the course of a good Samaritan. 13 10 28 THE PLAINS OF PASSAGE, by Jean M. Auel. (Crown, $24.95.) A couple on horseback trek across Europe in the Ice Age. 14 13 2 EYES OF PREY, by John Sandford. (Putnam, $19.95.) Lieut. Lucas Davenport on the trail of a serial killer in the Twin Cities. 15 12 11 FORGIVING, by LaVyrle Spencer. (Putnam, $19.95.) A young woman establishes a newspaper in Dakota Territory. Weeks This Last On Week Week List Nonfiction 1 1 NANCY REAGAN, by Kitty Kelley. (Simon & Schuster, $24.95.) An unauthorized biography of the former First Lady. 2 1 5 YOU'LL NEVER EAT LUNCH IN THIS TOWN AGAIN, by Julia Phillips. (Random House, $22.) Life in Hollywood as experienced by an Academy Award-winning producer. 3 2 23 IRON JOHN, by Robert Bly. (Addison-Wesley, $18.95.) The passage of the male from boyhood into manhood, as practiced in various cultures. 4 3 4 A HISTORY OF THE ARAB PEOPLES, by Albert Hourani. (Belknap/Harvard University, $24.95.) A comprehensive account from Mohammed's time to the present; the work of an Oxford scholar. 5 11 38 YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND, by Deborah Tannen. (Morrow, $18.95.) The different languages men and women speak and how the sexes can understand each other better. 6 5 2 I HAD A HAMMER, by Henry Aaron with Lonnie Wheeler. (HarperCollins, $21.95.) From the Negro leagues to the National League's most valuable player: the record-breaking baseball player's life. 7 13 2 LIFE IS TOO SHORT, by Mickey Rooney. (Villard, $22.50.) The autobiography of the film star. (LP) 8 10 4 SLEEPWALKING THROUGH HISTORY, by Haynes Johnson. (Norton, $24.95.) A social history of America during the Reagan era. 9 1 THERE ARE NO CHILDREN HERE, by Alex Kotlowitz. (Talese/Doubleday, $21.95.) The story of two brothers growing up on Chicago's mean streets. 10 7 8 THE NEXT CENTURY, by David Halberstam. (Morrow, $16.95.) A journalist's assessment of the prospects for various countries. 11 8 6 RIDERS ON THE STORM, by John Densmore. (Delacorte, $19.95.) Memories of Jim Morrison and the Doors, from the rock band's drummer. 12 * 4 6 IN OUR DEFENSE, by Ellen Alderman and Caroline Kennedy. (Morrow, $22.95.) How the Bill of Rights affects Americans' lives today. 13 12 3 THE PROMISED LAND, by Nicholas Lemann. (Knopf, $24.95.) The 20th-century migration of blacks from the rural South to the urban North and the changes it has wrought. 14 * 6 13 THE PRIZE, by Daniel Yergin. (Simon & Schuster, $24.95.) The role that oil has played in world history from the mid-19th century to the present. 15 * 1 MOVING PICTURES, by Ali MacGraw. (Bantam, $20.) The film star of the 1970's looks back on her checkered career. Weeks This Last On Week Week List Advice, How-to and Miscellaneous 1 1 37 HOMECOMING, by John Bradshaw. (Bantam, $18.95.) How to find the child you once were that lives within you and use it to deal with today's problems. 2 3 108 WEALTH WITHOUT RISK, by Charles J. Givens. (Simon & Schuster, $19.95.) A Florida entrepreneur's advice about how to make a personal fortune. 3 2 21 FINANCIAL SELF-DEFENSE, by Charles J. Givens. (Simon & Schuster, $22.95.) Ways to manage your money. 4 5 25 WHERE'S WALDO? by Martin Handford. (Little, Brown, $12.95.) A book of illustrations in which the game is to find a hitchhiker named Waldo. 5 4 68 THE GREAT WALDO SEARCH, by Martin Handford. (Little, Brown, $12.95.) A book of illustrated games. These listings are based on computer-processed sales figures from 3,000 bookstores and from representative wholesalers with more than 28,000 other retail outlets, including variety stores and supermarkets. The figures are statistically adjusted to represent sales in all such outlets across the United States. *An asterisk before a book's title indicates that its sales, weighted to reflect the book-selling industry nationally, are barely distinguishable from those of the book above. LP indicates that a book is available in large print. AND BEAR IN MIND

(Editors' choices of other recent books of particular interest)

BRINGING DOWN THE GREAT WALL: Writings on Science, Culture, and Democracy in China, by Fang Lizhi. (Knopf, $19.95.) A comprehensive selection of the written (and spoken) words of the witty, passionate, tenacious and articulate Chinese scientist and dissident who at present is living in the United States.

HOLOCAUST TESTIMONIES: The Ruins of Memory, by Lawrence L. Langer. (Yale University, $25.) This unsparingly honest effort to interpret interviews given by Holocaust survivors reveals conflicts between levels of memory, between the urge to tell and the conviction that no one will understand.

LONELY HEARTS OF THE COSMOS: The Scientific Quest for the Secret of the Universe, by Dennis Overbye. (HarperCollins, $25.) A vivid journalistic history of the amazing discoveries -- as well as the amazing speculations -- of the last 20 years of cosmology.

WAR FEVER, by J. G. Ballard. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $18.95.) Fantastic, obsessive stories (and other kinds of fiction) that pursue the reversal of expectation and the extrapolation of trends.

THE WAY THAT WATER ENTERS STONE, by John Dufresne. (Norton, $18.95.) This fine first collection of short stories deals with love lost but never forgotten and with what one character calls "the problem of being a mortal with immortal aspirations."

CHASING THE MONSOON, by Alexander Frater. (Knopf, $21.) A delightful, unusual travel book, full of amusing perceptions about India and its inescapable links with the past, recent and remote.

THE SOCCER WAR, by Ryszard Kapuscinski. (Knopf, $21.) A fascinating, highly colored collection of essays and notes from third-world countries based on the author's 22 years as a correspondent for the Polish Press Agency.